Beginning of the End

Similar Conditions Today

A similar condition exists today. Appetite is indulged without restraint. Professed followers of Christ are eating and drinking with the drunken. Intemperance numbs the moral and spiritual powers and prepares for indulgence of the lower passions. Multitudes become slaves of lust, living for the sensual pleasures. Extravagance saturates society. People sacrifice integrity for luxury and display. Fraud, bribery, and theft go unrebuked. The media report many crimes so cold-blooded that it seems as though every instinct of humanity were blotted out. And these atrocities have become so common that they hardly produce surprise. The pent-up fires of lawlessness, having once escaped control, will fill the earth with woe and desolation. The pre-Flood world represents the condition to which modern society is rushing. BOE 40.1

God sent Noah to warn the world, so that the people could be led to repentance and escape the threatened destruction. As the time of Christ’s second coming draws near, the Lord sends His servants with a warning to prepare for that great event. Multitudes have been living in violation of God’s law, and now in mercy He calls them to obey its sacred commands. All who will put away their sins by repentance and faith in Christ are offered pardon. But many reject His warnings and deny the authority of His law. BOE 40.2

Out of the vast population of the earth before the Flood, only eight people believed and obeyed God’s word through Noah. In the same way, sinners are warned to repent before the Lawgiver comes to punish the disobedient, but the majority will not pay attention to these warnings. “Scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, and saying, ‘Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning’” (2 Peter 3:3, 4). BOE 40.3

Jesus asked the significant question, “When the Son of man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8). “The Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons” (1 Timothy 4:1). “In the last days perilous times will come” (2 Timothy 3:1). BOE 40.4